Author: Stuart Corbridge
John Harriss/
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Year: 2001
Language: English
Pages: 313
ISBN/UPC (if available): 019565109X
Description
This work examines the history of modern India and its contemporary transformation, providing a lucid and eminently readable account of the changes affecting India today.
Part I of the book describes India's t4ransformation under colonial rule, and the ideas and social forces which underlay the deliberations of the Constituent Assembly which was convened in 1946 to consider the shaping of the postcolonial state.
Part II narrates the story of the making and unmaking of this modern India in the period from 1950 to the present day, paying attention to both economic and political developments, and engaging with the interpretations of India's recent history.
Part III has chapters on the dialectics of economic reform, religion and the politics of Hindu nationalism, and popular democracy. These chapters articulate a distinct position on the state and society in India at the beginning of the new century, and they allow the authors to engage with some of the key debates which concern public intellectuals in contemporary India.
Highlights of Reinventing India:
+A compelling account of rise of Hindu nationalism.
+An examination of the roles of reform, religion and politics in India's history; and
+Discussions of the work of key writers in the field: Partha Chatterjee, Sudipta Kaviraj, and Francine Frankel among others.
It is indispensable for students of politics, sociology and economic history, as well as for other readers who seek a comprehensive account of the myriad complex changes independent India has undergone.
Contents
Acknowledgements
Abbreviations
Glossary
Map 1 Territorial growth of the East India Company, to 1843
Map 2 Contemporary India
Preface
PART I : THE INVENTION OF MODERN INDIA
1. The Light of Asia? India in 1947
2. 'Sovereign, Democratic, Federal, Socialist, Secular':
PART II : CONTESTED MODERNITIES
3. The 'Tall Men' and the 'Third Way' : Nehru, Patel and the Building of Modern India
4. Jealous Populism, Crises and Instability : Indira's India
5. Drifting Towards Catastrophe : The Powerlessness of the Congress-(I)
6. 'Elite Revolts' : Reforming and Reinventing India in the 1990s
PART III : THE REINVENTION OF INDIA
7. The Dialectics of Reform : The State and Economic Liberalization
8. The Guilty Men? Militant Hinduism and the Politics of Anti-secularism
9. Transfer of Power? Subaltern Politics, Sites of Empowerment and the Reshaping of India's Democracy
Conclusion
Notes
References
Index